Re: QUEST ONLINE

From: tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin)

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000

MadCentral <madcentral@aol.com> wrote:
>>>No, but I *am* worried about spamming.  Can you (and someone from the Quest
>list side of things?) fill us in on what this is about?  Did you harvest
>addresses from the list and spam them?<<
>
>Well, Im rather tempted to say no, simply because I dont see any reason to
>explain myself to you, or anybody else, in my personal capacity here.  But I
>dont really mind, so...

You've got yourself good publicity (at least to me) by doing so.  There
seemed a fair bit of mud-slinging going on, I was curious, and I appreciate
your full explanation.

>
>In the decade of PBM that Madhouse has been a pbm firm, we have done what would
>be generally called 'spamming' fully once.
>
>About a year ago, one of my employees who has since left the company joined a
>bunch of mailing lists for a week, collected a load of email addresses and
>emailed them all a message saying, in just a couple of lines, "let us know if
>you'd like more info about our PBM games."  These mails went to a total of
>about forty people.
>
>KJC's player who runs the list put a ban on the email addresses used to join
>the lists (quite rightly so, thats what I do when I think they or another firm
>are doing a similar thing.)

All understood.  These things happen as one-offs, especially if your
employee was fairly new to the Internet - I can't see anyone but the most
fascist of netcops having a major problem.

>
>When I found out that my employee had done this I told him not to do it again.
>I didn't particularly tell him off though, because I didnt (and still dont)
>think it was a big deal.  The reason I dont spam is because I dont think it
>achieves anything and I think it mostly just aggravates people.  Certainly not
>because of anything a spanner like 'Greg Lindahl' says, or because of some
>'netiquette'  that nobody has any legal right to enforce.  Simply because it
>seems pretty pointless to me, so why bother?

I think we've probably been round this one before, so I'll not re-open it.
Some people believe in following the 'traditions' of the way the Internet
was used pre-commerce, some don't.  The fact that you don't believe in
spamming as an advertising method, for whatever reason, can only be a
Good Thing.

>
>We (like most other PBM firms) have experiemented with mailing to newsgroups
>(the ones who accept such mailings) with 'tasters' of new games.  (This group
>being an example.)  Beyond that, and the single instance of a 40-person spam,
>thats the most we've ever done.
>
>On the receiving end, I've had reports of my players getting spammed from
>addresses that had joined my lists many, many times.  I've had my actual
>discussion lists spammed with game adverts (the height of bad manners, if they
>dont ask permission, in my opinion.)  And I've had postal addresses taken from
>'fake' free startup positions and postal mailed to... and so on.. and so on...
>I dont really mind.  If those people think that works, good luck to them.  The
>most I do is ban them from our lists once I spot them.
>
>My original point in all this, Tim, was that the KJC player who said "I banned
>a couple of Madhouse addresses for spamming our players" was talking like we
>are some sort of 'evil spam monster' and that KJC (and other PBM firms) are
>angelic saints beyond reproach.  Nonsense really.

That's why I was curious - a pretty black picture was being painted.  Things
that are *that* one-sided are rarely as clear as they seem.

>
>And If Greg wants to start a 'blacklist' and wants to put us on it, for
>whatever reason or personal gripe he has, my response to that is ... let him.
>The bloke just makes me laugh, to be honest with you.  But he certainly doesn't
>make me quake in my boots with his silly claims.

Somehow I doubted he would ;)

Thanks again for taking the time for an explanation,
Tim.

References

Re: QUEST ONLINE
tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin)
Tue, 03 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000
Re: QUEST ONLINE
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Wed, 04 Oct 2000 00:00:00 +0000